


The Tale of Moonlit Abandonment

by ForgottenJuliett



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Hansel and Gretel - Freeform, Insanity, M/M, Slash, Twincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-14
Updated: 2012-06-14
Packaged: 2017-11-07 17:40:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/433706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForgottenJuliett/pseuds/ForgottenJuliett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lily dares to commit the crime to get what she wants, but her desire isn't enough to keep this thing from slipping away. Years later, she has to regret her decision when the boys she has abandoned long ago come home for revenge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tale of Moonlit Abandonment

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to create something twisted and fairy tale-like. This oneshot is very different from my other fic, so I won't hold it against you if you hate it. 
> 
> The inspiration was "Hansel and Gretel", a Grimm fairy tale, and the Vocaloid song with the same title as that of the story.
> 
> The first part is more about Lily but the rest of the story is about Harry and Tom. Umm... Anyway, I hope you enjoy my first attempt at writing a really dark fic :)

_What do you hope to the moon?_

_Do you wish it for the person who loves?_

_What do you fear most?_

_Do you have courage to commit the crime?_

 

Children.

Their lovely, sweet voices that ring like bells inside of her head. Their limbs, so tiny and frail they would snap if one applied too much pressure. Wide, innocent eyes, always filling with wonder and fascination whenever they catch something amusing.

The air of pure innocence and naivety dancing around them, enthralling adults and making them swoon.

Lily Potter loves children, loves everything about them.

Loves the only thing forbidden to her.

“Lily? Not brooding again, I hope?” a concerned voice asks.

With practiced ease, Lily puts on the mask of happiness, which has become almost inseparable from her. Not enough to make her inner depressing pondering disappear, but apparently enough to fool her husband.

James smiles, relieved.

Even after all those years, he hasn’t learned to truly decipher her feelings. Despite all his passionate promises and attempts to dissolve the veil of mystery around her, he is not successful.

“Just thinking. Do you want some soup, James? There is a little left in the kettle, I believe.”

“Nah. Don’t like it. Really, Lils, for being so _old_ -“

“I am not old, you overgrown child!”

She hits him in the head lightly, a motion so familiar she can do it in her sleep.  This unchangeable familiarity makes the empty void inside her mind and soul wider – is it even possible? – and her eyes dim, turning from her usual grass-green into murky dark.

James’s smile dims too, and Lily is once again reminded that he knows.

How she is a barren woman without any hope of bringing him the only joy in life that matters.

His expression is so unbearably sorrowful, his gaze so empathic as he reaches out to touch her hair in this unbearably tender gesture she doesn’t deserve.

“Lils...” he trails off in a whisper, which awakens her from the haze and makes her slap the gentle hand away – don’t look at me like that, I’ve stolen your happy future from you, I don’t deserve your sympathy.

She storms off to the small garden, the only bright respite among the darkness of the forest, in the middle of which they reside.

She vaguely hears the beloved voice but doesn’t turn around.

She can’t.

Why did she lash out at him like that? Was it really necessary? She could have avoided the argument, the appearance of brokenness on this masculine face, she could have…

She braces herself and curses once more this defect of hers, this inability that has destroyed their life.

Her mind is constantly snapping from one state to another, from one of almost serenity to anxiety; from desperation, and depression, and dizziness to moments of strange lucidness.

She doesn’t know what to do to stop it. Better yet, she knows, but her traitorous body can’t, and the reminder makes her curl up, right amongst the blooming lily flowers – so purely white, like a child’s soul – and bow down her head, and weep for the lost dreams she has had.

She never notices her husband standing a few feet away from her, his thin lips pressed into a tight line.

His thoughts revolve around the ways to comfort her, but none are adequate enough. He is afraid her mental health will be under grater strain, and berates himself from this lack of courage.

Their small hut in the middle of the forest is too cold, and both its inhabitants feel the absence of someone able to disperse the ice.

XXX

The tune Lily hums under her breath does nothing to distract her from the ominous shadows the trees cast on the barely-visible road beneath her shoes.

The forest is dark, too dark for her liking. She has made a mistake in assuming the long walk will divert her attention from the gloomy thoughts tearing her mind apart with invisible, cruel claws.

She wraps the cloak around her fragile shoulders tighter and wishes she had something warmer. The wind continues to freeze her to the bones mercilessly.

Alas, she knows of the villagers’ fear of her and knows she can’t go there to ask for proper clothing. She has learned how to produce rough fabric, but it’s never enough to really warm her up.

They say she is a witch, but how she can be one when she is unable to give James the thing they both wish the most?

...Her sweet James, who has been there when the other children, in their blind bouts of cruelty, threw stones at her, each of their spiteful remarks digging in her soul like cold bites of knives.

Her sweet James, who has left his friends and his family for her.

Her sweet James, who forgave her when she had killed his best friend, a boy particularly mean to her.

Lily clenches her pale fists and feels the skin around her lips tighten.

“Miss? Miss, can you help me?”

Lily whirls around, her black cloak billowing, to see an odd woman whose voice was much gentler than her appearance.

In her large and callous hands she holds two tiny bundles with identical tufts of black hair peeping out of the expensive fabric.

Suddenly, red haze encompasses Lily’s eyes. She feels a rage overcoming even the one she feels about herself.

This ugly, large woman has something she has not.

“Can you tell me the way out please?” The woman’s expression is sheepish, which does nothing to better her horrendous facial features. “You see, I was lost when…”

Lily drowns her out, and the pressing concern is to not rip the bundles out of the other woman’s hold and run away with them. Her lips tremble, and her eyes shift agitatedly. She knows she looks feverish, but the woman doesn’t notice.

“I will help you,” Lily cuts the woman off mid-rant and tries to twist her lips into a smile. Judging by the dubious look the woman sends her, she doubts it came out well. It was probably too shaky and soulless.

The woman's expression brightens immediately though, and she exclaims, “Really? Thank you so much! I am Merope, by the way. Merope Riddle. Someday, you should get by our manor for tea. Our servant Dobby makes the best kind, you see.”

Merope Riddle. Tom Riddle.

The memories of the boy always sneering at her and hitting her are as vivid and real as the pain, both emotional and physical, she felt then.

Lily has to gather all her forces to not lash out at the annoyingly happy woman who has the gall to look so blissfully content with her life.

“You… have wonderful kids,” she starts in an attempt to shake the desire to commit a murder off. Her voice is trembling, but the Riddle woman doesn’t notice still.

“Ahh, yes. Harry and Tom. Twins, they are. Always so quiet, especially Tom. I have never seen or heard him cry; the nannies are so pleased.”

A fallen brunch Riddle steps on almost drowns out her last words.

“You are so lucky to have two sweet children,” Lily says, her tone wistful and her eyes stare off into space as they walk. The haze on her eyes is still there, and the woman is afraid she will do something inappropriate, or strange, or mad.

Like she has done to her sister who refused to accept her.

Like she has done to Sirius Black who attempted to take James away from her.

She wants this fury gone and clutches the rough fabric of her home-made dress, wrinkling it. Her lips are pursed but she doesn’t feel anything, though she knows her teeth will leave marks that James will berate her for later, while making love to her – the only activity that makes her feel anything.

“Actually, I won’t call it much luck.” Merope pets the head of one of the boys – Harry? Or Tom? Did it matter? – and Lily’s eyes glue to the motion.

“I have always loved him. Tom, I mean. He was my love at first sight. I went to a witch- Well, I got pregnant so he’d propose to me. His family is very old and conservative. They all follow traditions closely.”

“You don’t love them?” If the Riddle woman turned around, she would have seen the murderous expression on Lily’s face.

She keeps walking never looking back.

“Umm… I love them a bit but they were a means to an end, in my opinion.” She shrugs unconcernedly.

The way she said it, the indifference she showed towards those two bundles of happiness, those _forbidden fruits_ Lily is denied…

She lets the deathly arms of coldness embrace her. Her steps are mechanical and the drumming of her heartbeat in her ears is so loud she cannot hear anything else. She slows down a bit, watching as the woman before her carries on talking and walking without any regard to her surroundings.

How foolish.

She makes it all the easier.

Lily slowly pulls out the knife she has been given by James to fend off wild animals, just in case. Its cold silvery glint shines just like the moon above them, the only witness to what is about to transpire.

“-And then Dobby was all like ‘Mistress, I didn’t mean to’. And my Tom just laughed in this cruel laugh of his and told this lousy servant ‘No food for the rest of the day’. Then he-“

Merope will never know what hit her.

Foreign hands pressing on her neck, a moment of blinding pain, and her knees give in. She falls to the slightly wet ground, making odd gurgling noises, and watches with a horrified gaze how blood spills on the yellowish leaves. Harry’s and Tom’s small hearts are beating serenely; the two boys’ sleep not disturbed by the events that have transpired.

Using her last strength, Merope Riddle lifts her head and meets the unfazed emerald eyes.

She doesn’t have the time for any last words.

Lily gasps and purses her lips in worry, her mind already cool and waves of remorse overflowing her mind.

She _knew_ it would be unwise to offer help.

She has killed again tonight.

Once more, she has spilled the innocent blood.

Except that the blood of a lousy failure of a mother couldn’t be innocent, right?

Lily took a deep breath and crouched down besides the bleeding woman. She knows perfectly well how to skin animals. People are not that far off.

Gently, she pulls the still sleeping children out of their dead mother’s hold. One of the children opens his eyes and she sees ruby red in them but then they close again and she believes it has been her imagination.

She takes them in her arms and, for the first time, feels genuinely happy.

Their life will be perfect after this.

She is so sure of it.

XXX

_9 years later…_

XXX

 “Where is mommy?” Harry, the younger twin with bright green eyes, whines to his father, who has been behaving strangely today.

“She is… Has some business to take care of,” James replies with a faraway look, his hand holding Harry’s loosely.

Tom frowns at his expression, his bordering on red eyes too perceptive for his age. Not for the first time, James flinches at the colour and the feel, and hopes neither of the boys has noticed it.

“In the village?”

“Yes, there.”

“Village is cool,” Harry says brightly and nods sagely, looking at Tom in hopes of seeing approval there. He gets only an irritated glare in return. “It’s a pity we have never been there. Will you take us to it someday, dad?”

James’s lips tighten as he forces out, “If you behave. Maybe.”

“Who were the men coming here last week?” Tom suddenly cuts in. His eyes are smart and so _knowing_ that James can’t help but hate them.

“Oh, yeah, dad. You never told us. And why did we have to hide? Tom and I- We haven’t done anything illegal, have we?” Harry worries his bottom lip and his face is so concerned that James is ready to cry at what he is about to do.

“Of course not, dear,” he reassures him. His voice wavers, but Harry still believes.

And James almost hates Lily for it, for what he is about to do, for what she forces him to do.

He remembers her mad eyes when those people who have seen Tom near the village and noted his abnormal similarity to Lord Riddle, asked questions of all kinds, and threatened them to take away the children and throw them into jail for kidnapping if they ever find Lord Riddle’s sons in their hut.

He also remembers her whispered words. _‘Better get rid of them, for now, for ever, doesn’t matter. They are my children. Only mine. I don’t want them to bear any other surname.’_

James wanted to stand up to his wife, to tell her his thoughts on this idea…

Her frailty and vulnerability stopped him. He has always been too weak to go against her wishes.

And now he has to bear the full brunt of this mistake.

To basically kill his sons.

“Where are we going?” Harry asks curiously, only now noticing how far they have gone into the forest.

“A lovely meadow with a lot of mushrooms.” James tries to grin. It comes out lopsided. “Don’t worry, I know the way back.”

“Mushroom soup tonight! Yaaay!” Harry tears his hand out of James’s – never knowing that these are the last instances he feels the warmth of his father’s hand – and bounces ahead.

“Don’t you want to go with him, Tom?”

“I don’t have to hop up and down like an idiot to move.”

For a while, James just watches.

Harry beams when he manages to find a particularly tasty-looking mushroom; Tom scowls but helps him obediently; their chatter, full of sibling rivalry and arguments but at the same time familial affection…

The sun sets.

Not bearing to look anymore, James leaves.

XXX

“Where is father?”

It is late and Harry wants to drink. Badly. And eat. Has he eaten anything since early afternoon? He doesn’t comprehend how Tom isn’t bothered in the least by the hot weather and hunger. His brother is just resting under one of the yews, his expression as impassive as always.

“Has abandoned us.”

Harry gawks at the crude and nonchalant reply before becoming angered and storming off to his quiet brother.

“Why are you saying that? It isn’t funny, Tom. Father will never-“

“Believe what you want. He isn’t coming.”

Harry wants to scream for his brother to understand except that something is stopping him. The words sound like ominous thunder under the coat of night, and Harry feels shivers run down his spine.

“He will come…”

The words don’t sound as sure as Harry would have liked. Tom’s expression softens and he invites his twin to sit by his side, which Harry does.

“Remember,” he begins, and Harry is full ears because Tom never speaks unless it is to throw a cruel remark at someone, “you once said that you wanted to spend life only with me for company?”

“Father must be worried about us right now.”

“It seems like your wish came true.”

“He and mum are most likely searching through the forest.”

“We only have each other now.”

“Just you wait and see.”

“We are alone now.”

The words that have left Tom’s lips are like a death penalty, ruthless and unpitying. And Harry shakes his head mutely, continuously, but the words won’t leave his head.

His father knows the forest better than anyone, after all. He would have found them by know if he truly wanted it.

Minutes drag on, then hours.

No steps are heard approaching the two boys curled up together.

“It’s just us,” Tom says one last time, his eyes like glittering rubies, and Harry is too tired to disagree.

“Lean on me.”

And Harry does, hoping for it to be a mere dream.

XXX

Days pass.

Harry’s feet are hurting, so much, almost like his heart is. Day and night, both cold and warm, they wander through the forest, struggling through the menacing brunches of yews and hearing mocking crows of ravens.

“Never stop,” Tom tells him time and time again.

Harry never does. But he wants to get angry at Tom, who doesn’t seem fazed by it at all, as if their abandonment – Harry knows that their dad isn’t coming for them now – is a simple inconvenience and something not really worth getting mad over.

One night, he is just so filled with hatred and helplessness that he hits Tom, at which his dear brother only smiles his usual mysterious smile and holds his hands tenderly, and Harry sees his childish, desperate reflection in his brother’s glinting eyes, and not for the first time the thought of their likeness pierces him.

Twins.

The reflections of one another.

Harry wonders if Tom has ever looked as lost as he himself feels.

All those thoughts fly out of his head when Tom bends down slightly and kisses his knuckles in a rare show of affection.

XXX

Hunger never leaves them.

Harry is so used to hearing his stomach growl that he doesn’t pay it any mind when they are sitting together once again – the ground is cold now and wet, and yew leaves are dirty, and he is so sick of yews now – and snuggle to each other in an attempt to save the fragile warmth.

Their summer clothing doesn’t protect them from the wind at all, and Harry finds himself shivering, knowing that he is probably very much feverish right now.

“It is their fault, you know,” Tom whispers in his ear, his palm sliding up and down Harry’s arm lovingly. “We have to get revenge someday.”

Harry just nods, not really understanding who Tom is talking about. Their parents perhaps?

Do they even have a parent?

Harry doesn’t remember. He vaguely recalls grass green, and a sheepish smile of a handsome black-haired man, but is sure they are not his parents; they don’t look a thing alike.

There is just Tom and him. Him and Tom.

And no one else is needed, no one else alive anyway, though some food would be appreciated because the stream they have found doesn’t have any fish in it, and the water is so dirty that had Harry not felt so thirsty, he would have never drunk from it.

“I love you, dear brother.” Tom’s voice is velvety and smooth, and Harry fleetingly wonders why his own one doesn’t hold this much dark promise.

“I love you too, Tom.”

“We will eat tomorrow. I assure you.”

“How?”

“Tomorrow.”

Embraced so lovingly, Harry doesn’t remember how he falls asleep.

XXX

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry sees a fluid motion and a blur of light grey, and his brother pinches his arm to get him moving.

With animalistic speed he would have never thought himself capable of, Harry leaps to the rabbit and his fingers immediately dig into the animal’s tender neck.

Harry sees its horrified eyes and before he can let the rabbit go in the wake of his remorse, Tom’s slightly larger hands cover his and push his fingers to curl more around the neck, gently but firmly.

The rabbit doesn’t struggle anymore, and its glossy red eyes remind Harry of Tom’s for a moment. In a sudden bout of fright, Harry releases the animal and falls to the ground, feeling tears flooding his eyes.

“I didn’t want it.” He sobs, hearing crows respond him in their usual scornful sounds. “I am a killer now!”

“So what? Does it make you sad?”

“Someone… I don’t remember who, but they always told me killing is wrong.”

“If you hadn’t done this, we would have died some time later.” Tom crouches besides him and taps his shoulder lightly, his smile is so benign and so foreign to the words he is murmuring.

“You are my brother. My twin. _I_ can do it. Why shouldn’t it be the same for you?”

“I love you, Tom.” Wiping his eyes, Harry tries to stand up and tries to smile, failing at both.

“Of course. No one else is like us. We don’t need others, and you have to forget the things those people told you.”

Harry feels lighter now and manages to flash his brother a grin. After all, whatever Tom says, is true, like it has always been.

They don’t have a knife to skin the rabbit but there are a lot of brunches, and he has some matches, and a set of really strong teeth.

Finally, they have something nutritious to eat for tonight.

XXX

If they could, they would have built a house to live in.

Alas, they are both small and their arms are weak from malnutrition and aimless wandering through the forest.

Who are they searching for? Or what?

Harry doesn’t remember. In fact, he remembers nothing but tiny flashes of brilliant red, and the taste of mushroom soup, and their shared with Tom bedroom.  He is confused because he doesn’t recall the life before the forest.

Yews in the morning, and the same yews in the evening, and the crows accompany them everywhere. Or perhaps Harry and Tom are accompanying them? Harry can’t tell the answer to this anymore.

This night, he is particularly cold. Even snuggling up to Tom doesn’t help much.

“I want this weather to go away,” Harry mumbles sullenly, the sound muffled, because his face is in Tom’s worn shirt, just as battered as the rest of their clothing.

“I have a way for us to get warmer,” Tom says off handedly, knowing he has Harry’s full attention.

“Really? How?”

“I saw a couple of people from years ago doing it. It also brings pleasure, or so I think.”

Without waiting for any reply, Tom covers Harry’s mouth with his own, his thin fingers threading through the identical raven hair.

Harry flushes and doesn’t know what to do at first. He almost panics when something warm and wet enters his mouth demandingly, but tells himself that this is Tom, _his_ Tom, the only person he has ever really known, those strangers from the snippets of his dreams not included.

“Just relax,” Tom says gently after pulling his tongue out of Harry’s mouth, and pushes his twin to lie on the ground, getting fallen leaves entangled in Harry’s black hair. “I will guide you like I have always done.”

Harry obeys, and their next kiss is much better. Their movements are more heated, more passionate, with tongues clashing and saliva exchanged. Tom grips Harry’s jaw almost painfully, all his usual gentleness gone.

When Harry finds himself out of breath, he struggles for freedom, and those invading hands that suddenly feel so foreign release him, giving him a short respite, before his shoulders are clutched again, and Harry feels much like the rabbit he strangled ages ago.

“My twin,” Tom whispers reverently, while leaving a trail of wet kisses down his brother’s throat, and unbuttoning the dirty shirt. His voice is hoarse, and Harry can’t tell if it is from passion or from poor eating habits. Maybe both, he reflects. “My beloved. I have waited long to do this, and now you will obey.”

Not giving Harry time to respond, Tom tears the shirt apart, revealing Harry’s chest. For a moment, he just looks, and Harry turns away his head in shame that his sticking out ribs and deathly pale skin don’t look more appealing.

Tom isn’t bothered though, and leans forward to suck on one of the nipples, making Harry moan in the process. Tom's hands are roving up and down Harry’s torso, and while the motions are uncertain and inexpert, their enthusiasm makes up for the lack of experience.

Harry shudders when teasing, light touches stop, and Tom’s hand stops at the hem of his trousers, as if asking for permission. Harry thinks it is his imagination, because Tom never asks, and even when he does, there is nothing Harry will ever deny him.

Worshipfully, Tom strips Harry completely, murmuring soothing words when Harry feels the cold attack him. Strangely, it is still warmer than it was before, and he wonders why.

Tom is still to undress, and when Harry asks , he just stretches his lips in a smile and shakes his head.

The thoughts and offense fly out of Harry’s head when Tom bends down to wrap his fingers around Harry’s length and kisses the tip of his cock before swallowing it up completely, thus eliciting a pleasured gasp from Harry.

Harry’s fingers seize Tom’s locks and he brings his twin’s head even closer to his crotch, making Tom almost choke.

They move together, and Harry’s mewls and moans and gasps of pleasure are enough to make the ravens finally shut up, and fleetingly he wonders if they should do it more often just to hear the almost-silence, where only Tom and himself exist, this time for true.

Tom has always been there for him, and Harry knows he has to reward this kindness. He untangles his fingers from Tom’s hair and can’t keep the disappointed expression away from his face when Tom’s sweet mouth leaves his cock.

Once again, they kiss. They don’t know for how long they will survive, so it might as well be their last one, and it is desperate, and demanding, and a bit violent; everything a real loving kiss should not be.

“I want to bring pleasure to you,” Harry says, his eyes as dark as Tom’s, and for the first time the colour is almost identical. With their erratic breathing, a thread of saliva between them, and debauched looks, for the first time they are real mirror images of each other.

The lust in Tom’s eyes is more pronounced.

With a heated growl, he tugs on his trousers to free his throbbing erection. Harry’s hesitant feather-light touches do nothing but encourage him to grasp his twin’s legs and pull them apart, fully uncovering Harry’s own cock and begging for entrance.

There is no lube around, and Tom vaguely knows what it is at all, so they decide to use saliva – the only thing in abundance in this accursed forest.

When Tom pushes in the first finger, Harry is uncomfortable. Not hurting or in pleasure – simply uncomfortable at the foreign thing in his arse.

Another finger adds, and the pain is more pronounced, more vivid. With the third finger, Harry screams and Tom leans in to whisper sweet nothings in his ear, how it will all be better in the end and that Harry should man up, because Tom’s brother can’t be a weakling.

When the intruding fingers are done with pushing and scissoring and what not, Harry feels relieved when they leave him. Not for long though, and when Tom’s erection thrusts into him up to the very balls, Harry cries out in pain and his nails graze Tom’s skin, leaving marks that will take many days to heal.

“Harry!” Tom breathes out, his previously dark as night eyes flashing the same ruby red Harry has seen many times when Tom is in a particularly good mood.

At first, all Harry thinks about is the overwhelming pain and offense at how his dear brother can hurt him so. His cheeks are wet from the streams of tears, and his always gentle and considerate brother can’t seem to think of anything but his own enjoyment as he gasps out ‘Harry’ over and over again.

Then, Tom hits some spot inside of him, and Harry sees stars and feels pleasure unrivalled even by the feel of tender rabbit meat on his tongue. His back arches up, right into Tom, and he gives his brother a better access to the inside of his arse.

His mindless screams turn into the chant of ‘Tom’, and Harry’s cheeks are flushed as he pants repeatedly right into his brother’s hair. He tightens his hands around Tom’s shoulders – so frail, so like his own – and moans when a certain thrust buries Tom’s cock inside him.

Their movements are erratic, and Harry feels his heart drumming in his ears. The dirty leaves underneath them don’t bother him anymore and the only thing they can think about is each other; their shared passion, and lust, and hunger for each other.

Harry comes first, splashing the cum on their chests and stomachs. Some specks of it land on his cheek, and Tom lifts his head to lick them off, and Harry kisses him, tasting his own essence in Tom’s mouth.

Tom rams into Harry a few more times before he comes. His final moan is drowned by the demanding kiss they share.

Exhausted beyond belief, Tom falls right on Harry, not having the strength to pull out his now limp cock.

They fall asleep like this, with yews and crows guarding their sleep.

XXX

How old are they now?

Harry doesn’t remember.

Tom is there, always there – the only constant presence in his life.

Every night, he leans on his brother and allows Tom to take him repeatedly, needing this solid warmth, the evidence that reality hasn’t escaped him completely throughout the days – _years_ – of mindless wanderings. Most of all, he likes to lie down and rest his head on Tom’s chest.

This way, he can see that his other half is still alive.

They go to wash in a stream they have found long ago, on their first days alone.

Alone. Harry doesn’t really feel lonely because he has Tom and Tom has him, and why would they need anyone else?

He distinctly remembers shadows of people, dreams about them, but whenever he asks Tom about it, his twin just smiles and shrugs and says they are not important and he is hurt that Harry needs anyone else to be happy.

He doesn’t want Tom to get angry, so they wash each other, and Harry manages to elicit a few laughs from Tom, and they are so blindly happy, when they hear footsteps and have to hide behind some of the bushes by the stream.

Hunters. Living beings.

“Oi, Marc, are you sure we are going in the right direction?” one of them asks, swinging the rifle in his hands carelessly. The dead foxes dangling from his arm are enough to make Harry salivate.

“Kind of. Even if we do get lost, the witch will tell us the way.”

“I heard about her. Lily Potter, is it? Bewitched this poor forester, what’s his name again?”

Lily Potter. The name is familiar and Harry, in his concentration, misses the concerned look Tom sends him and the angry one at the hunters.

“Jim or Jamie or something. At least she's better than this other witch, our Lord’s deceased wife. Heard she drugged him, and then got pregnant and made him marry her. She and her children disappeared, though, many years ago. In this wood, by the way.”

“Huh, creepy, that.”

“Agreed. Let’s finish with the foxes and go to Lord Riddle.”

“Harry,” Tom snaps Harry out of his pondering.”Do you want us to be separated?”

Extreme anxiety pierces Harry at the words and, suddenly, he cannot breathe and hyperventilates, not minding Tom’s soothing hands on his shoulders.

“N-no! I never- Why are you asking that? You are not-“

“I’m not leaving,” Tom says, silencing him with a finger to his mouth. “But those people can notice us. And we will be adopted someday. Or forced to cooperate with others and share our world with them. It won’t be about the two of us anymore.”

Harry knows he can’t let this happen because Tom is his life, and they are mirror reflections of one another and cannot live apart. He understands what Tom needs him to do when his brother motions to the knife one of the hunters has dropped in his haste to get away from the forest with witches.

Harry’s footsteps are practiced and silent. One of the hunters is a bit behind, so he knows he has to slit this one’s throat at first. Silently and quickly.

The other one never hears what has happened to his fellow comrade, and Harry feels despise, because he knows that Tom or himself would have heard if one of them was killed, and Harry is once more assured that no one else is like them; all other people are inferior to them and not worth staying alive and intruding in Harry and Tom's content life together.

Lord Riddle’s hunters never come home this day.

XXX

“I hate snow,” Harry grumbles under his breath, sneezing and wrapping both his and Tom’s shirts around him tighter. Tom has always been the stronger one, never bothered by heat or cold or hunger.

“Let’s visit the witch then,” Tom says, making Harry look at him.

“What if she doesn’t agree to let us in? She does have a husband, supposedly…”

“Then she is an obstacle to us being happy together. Just like those hunters were.”

Harry takes the hint and grins, not paying attention to the rage shimmering beneath his skin. He won’t let anyone shatter what they have with Tom.

His dreams have passed now, replaced by dark slumber. He doesn’t really remember how other people look at all, Tom and himself being the only reminder of how to decipher a human from an animal.

“All right. Maybe she will have something to eat, too.”

XXX

The witch – a woman with fiery red hair and beautiful green eyes – and her henchman are both lying beneath their feet now, the man’s body severed and hers holding a lot of small gaping holes in the middle of her chest. The hunters’ rifles are useful once you know how to use them.

“I don’t want their bodies stinking,” Harry says and scrunches up his nose. “This is supposed to be our home, right?”

“Hmmm… Look, here is the oven. Let’s burn them and then throw out the rubbish,” Tom suggests, his eyes redder than the woman’s hair, and Harry does as told because Tom is the only source of joy in his life.

“I’m so happy for us now. There is truly nothing threatening our happiness,” Tom says and kneels down to kiss Harry’s bloodied fingers and then lick the blood off, making Harry gasp at the familiar tongue.

“What about more witches? Remember the woman the hunters mentioned. Maybe she’s still here…”

“Don’t worry about them. Stronger than a witch is only a wizard.” Tom’s smile is full of teeth and maliciousness and insanity, and Harry sees the identical reflection of it in Tom’s intense eyes.

“Somehow, I recognize this place,” Harry looks around and sees a kettle full of mushroom soup. Before he can go to it, a hand grabbing his wrist stops him.

“I think we have to celebrate our new-found home. Eating can wait,” says Tom hoarsely and his callous fingers tread on Harry’s frail wrist suggestively.

Harry smiles and knows that this is truly the end of their wanderings. Nothing will ever threaten them again.

Tom and Harry. Harry and Tom.

Two unlikely mirror images of each other, together until the very end.


End file.
